About

Anita Cooke is a visual artist living in New Orleans. She grew up in Springfield, Ohio, received her BFA at Kent State University and her MFA in ceramics and sculpture at Newcomb College/Tulane University in New Orleans. Cooke has taught Ceramics, Drawing and 3-D Design at Tulane University, Loyola, Delgado, Stephen F. Austin State (TX), Western Michigan State, and ceramics to children and adults out of her studio in New Orleans.

Cooke’s 28-foot ceramic mural “LightSounds” can be seen on the campus of Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo and she has been a Louisiana Fellowship recipient. She has exhibited her work extensively in Louisiana at Mario Villa Gallery, Carol Robinson Gallery, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, Flavio Dolce Art Projects, The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the CAC, the New Orleans Art Center, Capitol Park Museum, Carroll Gallery of Tulane University, Gallery I/O, the Acadiana Center for the Arts in Lafayette and many other venues.  Nationally she has shown at the Southern Ohio Museum of Art, the Mississippi Museum of Art, the Leila Taghinia Heller Gallery (NYC), The Center of the Earth Gallery in Charlotte (NC), the Dishman Art Museum (TX), The Greenwood Arts Center (SC), the Reece Museum (TN), Sebastopol Center for the Arts (CA), Georgetown Arts Center (TX), Manifest Gallery (OH), Artfields in Lake City, SC, and the Virginia Quilt Museum (VA) amongst others in Texas, Florida, Illinois and Michigan. She is a former member of The Front Artist Collective and a current member of the Renegade Artist Collective in New Orleans and the Baton Rouge Gallery Center for Contemporary Art. She was recently featured in February 2024 in an article and on the cover of In the Arts, a contemporary textile art magazine.

Cooke was a ceramic sculptor and potter for many years before losing her clay studio to Hurricane Katrina. After working to repair her home for two years in its aftermath, she brought her late “Auntie Genies’ 1950’s Singer Featherweight sewing machine out of the back of a closet, leading her to reinvent herself as a textile artist. She is currently working with sewing and fabric, mixed media, drawing, collage and most recently, installation work.

Cooke considers herself to be primarily a process artist who attempts to unearth meaning within the materials and processes themselves. A way of working can often reveal timeless themes such as order and chaos, notions concerning life-altering pathways and maps, hidden and layered worlds, destruction and renewal. While she has always been concerned with social ills and issues, it is only recently that these topics have found their way into her vision, broadening the scope of her work.